While most of us condemned the farce that was the loss of the University of Massachusetts Star Store Campus of Visual and Performing Arts by the UMass system that could have owned the building for a dollar and how the loss of the students will affect the downtown area as an anchor to its life has been weighed.

We were shocked to see that after the move and the need to leave some kilns behind, the new campus will be in a closed Bed, Bath, and Beyond store in a sickly strip mall just in time to share the corner of the place with a Spirit Halloween pop up store..

We may be angry at the loss of students and their loss of what their future could have been, but we may not be aware of the more concrete problem that the public neither sees nor experiences but those art students have and do.

Along with the students demanding it, New Bedford mayor Jon Mitcheell and the state senator who had gotten the university to move into the Star Store with the financial arrangement for the university to own it for a buck after 20 years, Mark Montigny, have called on the University of Massachusetts to refund tuition.

Senator Motigny released a statement in support of the students’ demand for tuition reimbursement.

“UMass must provide student-artists with tuition reimbursement for their ill-advised and rushed exit from Star Store.” 

For his part the mayor stated,

“I agree with the affected students that, at a minimum, they deserve a partial refund of their tuition. We continue to discuss the matter with the governor, the UMass president, and the building’s owner to see what might be possible in light of the condition of the building and the needs of the program.”

They signed a lease for a useful apartment and the landlord threw them into the garage.,

Student organizers pressured elected officials to respond to the university’s abruptly closing the downtown New Bedford campus weeks before the start of the academic year which has been almost nonexistent since the closure and, actually, while the mess was being made, and have pointed out that the university has also failed to furnish proper course materials and space for classes. As a matter of fact, they have also pointed out that during all this confusion, no clear plan for the College of Visual and Performing Arts, including impending midterms, have been disclosed even as the ball is rolling.

Some administrators have met with the students who organized a recent campus rally demanding reimbursement, and assured them that the former Bed, Bath, & Beyond location will lack gas kilns, glaze mixing equipment, and other essential tools. 

That is the response to tuition reimbursement?

Telling the victims that there is more bad news as you ignore their concerns?

When pressed, administrators explained the university would set up a fund for which students could submit receipts for art materials they have purchased since the Star Store’s closure. Who knows if, after a full academic year, the students will get back in material reimbursements more than a miniscule fraction of the tuition they paid for a better education and the remainder of which the university keeps.

I taught for 38 years. I know the ratio of work done to promised reimbursement never evens out. The house always wins.

Obviously the students saw this for what it is and did not buy it asserting that the university is playing political and PR damage control as this offer, as cute as it is, does not address the reduced education or their request for reimbursements.

Art students have now gone almost two months without studio space and one month without receiving the education they paid tuition for when they thought they would be in a state of the art studio building in downtown New Bedford that called for housing costs along with tuition.

Now, along with the obvious and vocal community support, the students have the vocal and visible support of the mayor, state senator, and, possibly, the governor. 

Meanwhile the university people seem to think a crumb will satisfy the artists.

“It’s been easier to meet with the Mayor, our state senator, even the governor than it is to meet with our own chancellor,”

according to one of the student organizers.

Imagine telling the football team two weeks before the season begins that the stadium and facilities are going to be somewhere else but the athletes will be reimbursed for their traveling expenses and equipment costs after they paid to play. Of course that would not happen. It’s sports.

But these are students seeking an education, so it is okay?

The budgets of the university system athletic program need a serious audit.

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